


Desperation on Silver Tongues

by feverishsea



Series: Even Mortals Have More Sense [2]
Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M, The Big(?) Reveal, Weighty Non-Mortal Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 22:50:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverishsea/pseuds/feverishsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two elves walk together in a garden; one with worry his heart and one with an unknowable heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desperation on Silver Tongues

**Author's Note:**

> A companion to clear up the mystery of the previous piece! Hope you enjoy :)
> 
> Also, I am very very talented and somehow BOTH parts of my series are now marked as #2... uh, if you know a way to clear that up, give me a holler. If not, um, please ignore my spectacular fail at having a series.

He walks in the moonlit gardens of Lord Elrond, but even the gentle glow of starlight on green, green leaves cannot soothe his soul.

"I fear that I feel the pull of waves inside my soul, lady," he says into the night air, knowing that she will hear him.

He finds her standing at the center of the garden, by a pool, is like a tall pillar of pale light; luminescent without needing to borrow from the moon. Her hands are tilted palm-up toward the sky. She looks like a statue, but one wrought of things finer than even those the elves know how to carft.

Then she turns to him, the gentle curve of her neck breaking the spell. 

"The sea will keep." The Lady of Lorien does not roll her eyes, but he thinks perhaps she comes close. "It is not calling your name yet; you would not be questioning me if it were. You would know."

She is tall and beautiful and terrible, and he knows that it is improper of him to harass the lady with his petty - practically mortal - concerns. And yet, he has never been skilled in holding himself aloof; never been able to properly separate the weighty from the mundane the way the rest of his people do.

"Then why this unease within me?" he asks her. The desperation is unfitting on an elf's silver tongue, but he has never been one for deception, and would he hide it, he could not, not from her. "I do not understand it. I have never felt this way before."

Galadriel fixes her luminous eyes on him, and it is all he can do not to shiver. There are whispers of a great, terrible eye to the North, but in that moment he cannot imagine that it sees more than the lady.

He expects her to tell him gently that she cannot help him any further, or perhaps less gently that he might not feel this way were he more in control of his heart. 

Instead she says, after a slight hesitation, "That is your fate, Legolas, tugging at you. I cannot tell you where it leads, but when it draws near, we can feel it. Your time is coming."

Then she gives him tiny smile and inclines her head.

"It is possible you will learn more in there, near to the wind that this feeling blew in on."

Legolas feels riveted to the spot. He can barely turn his head to look up at the glimpse of banquet hall visible through an open-air balcony. He can hear the noise from the hall, though; can hear stone-coarse voices and heavy feet beneath the sound of strumming harps.

"You cannot mean I'm tied to them," he protests, horrified at the mere thought. "They are..." Something wooden snaps and raucous laughter echoes down in to the garden. "...barbaric."

The lady shakes her head at him, gently, wearing her wisdom like a crown. Her expression is unreadable, but there is something almost amused about the shape of her mouth when she meets his eyes.

"Legolas Greenleaf, I would not have expected such judgments from you. Who was it that untied the Warg pup when he had only a mortal's share of years, because he felt it had not been given a fair trial?"

He does not glare, because one does not glare at fair Galadriel. But his hand comes up and he rubs compulsively at his left forearm.

"And even mortals had more sense than I," he says dryly. "I tested the sharpness of its teeth with my skin, for my troubles."

The lady levels him with her steady gaze, as sharp and clear as a cut diamond.

"And did you learn your lesson?" she asks.

_"You heart trusts where it will," he remembers his father saying wearily. The words feel familiar for all their distance._

Legolas opens his mouth to respond the way he responded to Thranduil many years ago. And yet - for all he loves his father, for all he loves his king, there is a power in Galadriel to inspire truth that his father does not possess.

He shuts his mouth and swallows. "No," he admits. The confession is galling. He has lived hundreds of mortal lifetimes over again, and yet still he is as green as a sapling, in truth. The name his father bestowed upon him is meet and fitting. Sometimes it feels as though he has learned nothing; oftentimes he feels as young as the face he wears. He resists the urge to bow his head in shame.

A rare smile graces the lady's lips.

"Then perhaps there is some hope for all of us," she says, her voice soft and clear between them in the night air. Legolas watches her wide-eyed. She nods toward the balcony. "Go, my ever-young companion. Go and place your hopes in more things that may turn on you. The world needs those few who will do so."

Legolas turns at her command dazedly and goes straight into the banquet hall, trying to process what he's heard this night. It will take him a long while, he knows.

The hall is loud and crowded and very bright after the night-cloaked garden; Legolas winces at the sudden assault on his senses. Dwarves are not neat eaters, nor particularly good company from what he can tell. They are loud and boisterous and yet do not appear moved to share their songs or stories with the elves that are providing them food.

Legolas does not forget this, but he puts it aside for a moment to look at them.

There is a dwarf in the back with trinkets woven through his braid and a scar woven nearly as skilfully over his eye. Legolas finds his eye returning to the dwarf to again and again, as though it is a familiar face. It isn't; it couldn't be; Legolas has only met a handful of dwarves before, and none of them were this dwarf.

And yet, when the dwarf flicks his dark eyes up and scowls at the elf's scrutiny, Legolas could almost believe there is something dear in that stony face.

It is strange, and wrong. It is nothing that any dwarf would appreciate. It horrifies Legolas, and yet... he cannot deny the way that something deep inside of him settles in contentedly to wait.  _This will be worth your trouble, if it comes,_ his heart seems eager to reassure him. And though it is untouchable and inexplicable, Legolas cannot deny the knowledge, once it is in his possession.

The scarred dwarf eyes him with displeasure. Legolas averts his gaze. He is still unsure of his footing, but now it is a curious sort of impatience. He is no longer imagining the swell of waves in his mind.

There is a halfling huddled in the back of the room who looks as uncertain as Legolas feels. He goes to the little creature, and hopes that his traitor heart will not one day shatter itself over the rocky hide of a dwarf.


End file.
